Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/405

 sketch, still the peculiarity of the figure and the style of countenance stamp them of the same race.

The following extract from Harris's "Wild Sports of Southern Africa," contains a most interesting description of the Bushmen:—

"At Kramers-fontein the next day, a horrible spectacle presented itself to us in the form of an emaciated old Bushwoman, who had come down from her kraal, five miles distant, to fill two ostrich eggs with water. 'Grim misery had worn her to the bones,' and it is no exaggeration to say that her attenuated form appeared a skeleton covered with a wet cloth. Those rounded proportions, which are given to the human form divine, had no existence in her. Her skin resembled wrinkled leather; and I can compare her legs and arms to nothing but straightened sticks, knobbed at the joints. Her body was actually crawling with vermin, with which she was constantly feeding a little half-inanimate miniature of herself in arms.

'Wither'd and wild in her attire, She look'd not like a habitant of earth, And yet was on it.'

We were glad to bribe her to depart by a present of tobacco; and the wretched creature's countenance evinced thankfulness at our liberality.

"The pigmy race, of which this woman was a characteristic specimen, usually reside in holes and crannies of rocks, and sometimes in wretched huts, incapable of protecting them from the inclemency of the seasons. These, their constant fear of discovery induces them to erect in secluded spots at a great distance from water: a precaution to which they are further prompted by a desire to leave the pools open for wild animals, which they occasionally shoot from an ambush with poisoned arrows, and devour on the spot. They possess neither flocks nor herds—are unacquainted with agriculture—and the most wealthy can boast of no property beyond his weapons and his starving dog. With no cares beyond the present moment, they